Kado Terindah dari GOOGLE

Kaget dan senang ketika hari ini membuka halaman blog ku, karena sdh hampir 2 minggu ini disibukan oleh pekerjaan sehingga blog ku terbengkalai dan tidak terupdate, tapi ternyata hari ini hal yang luar biasa aku temukan yaitu blog ku masuk dalam Page Rank Google urutan ke-2, bukan main sesuatu yang tidak pernah aku bayangkan sebelumnya blog ku yang baru berumur 2 bulan ini bisa tembus ke google page rank 2 dan alexa rank 366 ribuan. Terima kasih google karena telah memberikan kado terindah di awal Tahun 2010 ini, walaupun tantangan masih berat untuk menuju Google rank ke 10 tetapi sudah merupakan dukungan luar biasa buat aku untuk lebih semngat lagi mengembangkan pengetahuan di dunia maya....

Read More ..

Madrid, Milan, Bayern advance in Champions League

Real Madrid, AC Milan and Bayern Munich clinched their places in the next round of the Champions League on Tuesday.

The trio, European champions a total 20 times between them, advanced alongside CSKA Moscow after their final group matches.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice to help record nine-time European champion Madrid win 3-1 at Marseille and take Group C from Milan, which needed a penalty by Ronaldinho to equalize for a 1-1 draw at FC Zurich.

Bayern advanced behind already-qualified Bordeaux in Group A with a 4-1 win at Juventus that eliminated the Italian side, while CSKA Moscow won 2-1 at Besiktas.

Michael Owen scored a hat trick to give Manchester United a 3-1 win at Wolfsburg to take first place in Group B from CSKA and knock out its opponent. But CSKA's place may be in doubt after UEFA said two of the Russian team's players failed doping tests after a 3-3 draw against Manchester United last month.

UEFA will announce the result of its investigation on Dec. 17, the day before the draw for the next stage.

Ronaldo put Madrid ahead in the fifth minute with a 30-meter (yard) free kick before Marseille playmaker Lucho Gonzalez leveled from close range in the 11th.

Madrid defender Raul Albiol scored in the 60th and Ronaldo rounded off the scoring 10 minutes before the end following a mistake by Marseille goalkeeper Steve Mandanda.

Madrid finished with 13 points, four more than Milan, which trailed until the 64th minute in Switzerland.

Zurich dominated much of the first half and led through Milan Gajic's 29th-minute free kick from 25 yards (meters).

Milan was in real danger of missing out on the next round but Zurich defender Alain Rochat was sent of for a foul on Marco Borriello and Ronaldinho scored the resulting penalty.

Juventus looked to be on course for the next round when David Trezeguet put the Italian side ahead in the 19th, but Bayern got back in the match with a 30th-minute penalty by Joerg Butt - the goalkeeper's third in the Champions League.

Ivica Olic put Bayern ahead six minutes after halftime. Mario Gomez and substitute Anatoliy Tymoshchuk scored in the last seven minutes.

Bordeaux, which won 1-0 at Maccabi Haifa, won Group A with 16 points. Bayern was next with 10 points, while Juventus will play in the Europa League after finishing third with eight.

Maccabi Haifa became the first team to be eliminated from the Champions League without winning a point or scoring a goal.

Group D had already been settled before Tuesday.

First-place Chelsea conceded an 87th-minute equalizer to draw 2-2 with APOEL Nicosia, losing midfielder Michael Essien in the process to what appeared to be a hamstring injury.

FC Porto won 3-0 at Atletico Madrid, which ended even with APOEL on three points but advanced courtesy of the away goal in scored against the Cypriot side.

The final four places will be decided Wednesday. Barcelona, Inter Milan, Rubin Kazan and Dynamo Kiev can all advance from Group F, Unirea Urziceni and Stuttgart are vying to advance from Group G alongside Sevilla, and Olympiakos and Standard Liege are fighting for second place in Group H behind Arsenal.

Fiorentina and Lyon have already secured the top two Group E spots, with the final positions to be decided Wednesday when Fiorentina goes to Europa League qualifier Liverpool and Lyon is at last-place Debrecen.

Read More ..

Rp 4.5m in three days and still counting

Rahmat, an office boy at a private Jakarta company, was in high spirits collecting coins for Prita Mulyasari, the housewife on trial for defaming Omni International Hospital.

“He asks people for coins to support Prita from the workers in my office. He told me that he understood the pain of being a powerless person like Prita,” said Lia, one of the coordinators of Coins for Prita, in a phone interview Monday.

“I am a mother like Prita and I cannot stand to think of her daughter who needs breast-feeding.”
Coins for Prita is a fund-raising movement organized by sympathetic Internet community members.

Some members volunteered their places as posts to receive coin donations for Prita, who has recently been ordered by the Banten High Court to pay Rp 204 million (US$ 21,633) to compensate the hospital.

Prita is still seeking an appeal from the Supreme Court.

Samsul N.A., another coordinator, said the idea of donating coins for Prita’s cause came from members of a mailing list named Sehat Group.

“The group members, including me, decided donating coins would be a good idea because that way everyone could donate. We began to open the posts on Dec. 5.”

There are eight posts in Greater Jakarta and one post in Bandung. Samsul said five more posts would be opened in Bandung, Yogyakarta, Cirebon, Surabaya, and Medan. More information regarding the posts’ locations and point persons is available at www.koinkeadilan.com.

The posts’ coordinators said at least Rp 4.5 million had been gathered within two days.

“And many boxes in the posts have not been opened,” said Enda Nasution, the administrator for Facebook cause “Dukungan Bagi Ibu Prita” (Support for Prita).

Lia said the coordinators were discussing the coins’ management.

“We have not set a deadline for the fund-raising and are still confused how to transport the coins from cities outside Jakarta.”

Several media reported that the movement had become a grass roots fund-raiser with scavengers, students, housewives, expatriates and celebrities among the donors. Some donors had even donated coins along with their piggy banks.

Kompas.com reported Mundala, a trash picker, handed Rp 200,000 in coins collected from 100 scavengers in Srengseng Sawah, South Jakarta.

“We want to support a just cause,” Mundala said.

Read More ..

Letter: Learning from `2012'

While many eyes of Indonesians have been startled by the ongoing news about the KPK case, another story made me raise my eyebrows: the recent call by clerics from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) to ban the doomsday-themed movie 2012. In my humble opinion, the call to prohibit the movie only based on rumor is controversial. Although this is not the first time it has made controversial decisions.

Several days ago, my friend and I decided to watch the movie. Afterwards, we had different reviews: I was slightly bored by the use of "the end of days" related theme while my friend thought the movie was entertaining. However, we both agreed the movie had amazing special effects.

To put it briefly, the movie tells us the story of a situation in 2009 where scientists found a number of occurrences showing the end of the world was near. Before that, the Mayans had predicted that 2012 would be the last days of earth. The movie narrates how the people struggle to survive on the so-called doomsday.

There is one scene that many believed initiated the MUI's decision to ban the movie: the scene that showed a mosque destroyed by an earthquake. Furthermore, MUI chief KH Mahmud Zubaidi in Malang mentioned that doomsday is something that "no man could predict" and "the movie is not appropriate because it could affect people's way of thinking."

In my opinion, however, this is not the case. The call by MUI has officially underestimated Muslims in Indonesia who can differentiate between fact and fiction. The movie itself was enjoyable and there are many things we can learn from the movie. Yes, there are no people who can predict the end of the world. The movie nonetheless did not explicitly mean to tell us when the end of the world is. It is only to show us what may occur if doomsday arrives.

The Mayans arguably never predicted anything about the doomsday. The speculation arises because their calendar stops at 2012. Therefore, the reckoning appears due to a loose interpretation about the calendar rather than the Mayans' prophecy. Ironically, the council's verdict has provided the movie with free publicizing. For instance, Twitter has mentioned many times that MUI should not ban the movie. Many Tweets (a post on Twitter) even ridiculed MUI by saying that they should focus on other issues rather than ban the Hollywood movie.

Finally, I think it is time for MUI to start believing in the ability of Indonesian Muslims to decipher fact from fiction. The fact is that MUI's actions lead society to see them negatively. The problem that needs to be solved is not banning the movie. What we should understand more is how society sees the movie.

Perhaps, we feel insecure about entering judgment day due to the many terrible things we have done in the past. Thus, the case is not about what movie says, but how we see ourselves reflected in the movie's plot.

Read More ..

Case closed but Woods scrutiny continues

Tiger Woods didn't have to say a word to get Florida troopers off his case. The same strategy may be harder to pull off when it comes to the tabloid media probing his private life.

The police inquiry into the early morning car crash involving one of the world's most famous athletes came to a close Tuesday, even though Woods refused to talk to the Florida Highway Patrol. Woods was charged with careless driving, which carries a US$164 fine and four points on his driving record.


That good news for Woods was tempered by the cover story of Us Weekly magazine, which hits newsstands Wednesday, alleging that a Los Angeles cocktail waitress had a 31-month affair with the world's No. 1 golfer.

Jaimee Grubbs told the magazine she met Woods at a Las Vegas nightclub the week after the 2007 Masters - two months before Woods' wife, Elin Nordegren, gave birth to their first child. Grubbs claims to have proof in 300 text messages.

On Wednesday, the magazine published what it said was a voicemail provided by Grubbs that she said was left by Woods on Nov. 24, three days before his early morning car crash. In the voicemail, a man says to Grubbs:

"Hey, it's, uh, it's Tiger. I need you to do me a huge favor. Um, can you please, uh, take your name off your phone. My wife went through my phone. And, uh, may be calling you. If you can, please take your name off that and, um, and what do you call it just have it as a number on the voicemail, just have it as your telephone number. That's it, OK. You gotta do this for me. Huge. Quickly. All right. Bye."

The Associated Press could not confirm Woods was the caller.

Read More ..